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By Heidi Quigley, Special Projects Associate, Grossman Marketing Group

Although there has been a prolonged period of silence on “Sustainable Ink,” Grossman Marketing Group (GMG) has been anything but quiet. We have continued to grow and develop as a company, maintaining our focus on environmental responsibility. In fact, our new Special Projects Associate, Heidi Quigley, who will be helping with this blog, just graduated from college with a minor in environmental studies. In collaboration with Heidi, we have come across several interesting articles recently and thought it would be beneficial to share them below:

E-waste is increasingly becoming an issue in this country, and many households are unsure of how to dispose of old computers, phones and other products. If you are looking for a responsible way to rid yourself of old electronics, The New York Times suggests contributing them to a recycling program. In addition, people are welcome to bring in used electronics to most Best Buy and Staples locations. You can even trade in old equipment for resale using Gazelle or Amazon. GMG has “The Big Green Box” in many locations around our offices so employees can easily drop these off at work, removing a barrier to recycling.

While some people are looking to recycle their used gadgets, social media tools are helping people create awareness of the environment and ways to improve it. One interesting tool we have seen recently is Litterati, a, photo gallery of litter that allows users to share their findings and engage with brands. Here’s a great video overview of the company.

Last month, President Obama announced his commitment to the environment through his Climate Action Plan. This proposal aims to reduce greenhouse gases, prepare the United States for the impact of climate change, and help other countries contribute to a cleaner future.

In addition to the Climate Action Plan, the Obama administration is in the process of deciding whether the Keystone XL Pipeline should move forward. The level of impact on the environment from the pipeline must be determined before any decision can be made.

As green marketing and eco-labels have proliferated, consumer confusion about environmental claims has grown exponentially. In fact, according to the EcoLabel Index, there are more than 400 “green labels” in existence, with the numbers constantly rising. Late last year, the F.T.C. unveiled the latest version of their Green Guides, new guidelines that all companies interested in marketing products as “eco-friendly” must comply with. According to our friends at Cone Communications, the “new Green Guides seek to address persistent consumer confusion, cautioning marketers against making broad environmental claims like ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘green’ that are difficult to substantiate.”

We hope these are helpful for you – we will continue to share interesting content and observations related to the environment, green business and green marketing in the weeks and months to come. Thanks for reading!

Therefore, I was excited to read in the New York Times this month about some recent collaborative efforts among large companies to share environmentally friendly innovations. The article, titled “Everybody In the Pool Of Green Innovation,” spotlighted two major initiatives:

Eco-Patent Commons: According to the article’s author, Mary Tripsas, the Eco-Patent Commons was founded in 2008 and is a place where “Companies pledge environmental patents to the commons, and anyone can use them – free.”

GreenXchange: A joint initiative between the Creative Commons, Best Buy and Nike to be launched next year that will allow companies to contribute patents and be able to charge licensing fees for interested parties.

It remains to be seen how successful either of these initiatives will be (there are only 100 patents currently shared on the Eco-Patent Commons, and the GreenXchange has yet to go live), but these developments are encouraging. As I have seen in my business and those of our clients, learning about the tactics and strategies other organizations are employing to operate in a sustainable way has the potential to add tremendous value and contribute to the level of dialogue and ideas exchanged both in individual firms as well as in our society as a whole.

Al Gore wrote an excellent column in the New York Times on Sunday, 11/9, in which he lays out a very clear and sensible five-part plan to get America to produce 100 percent of its electricity from carbon-free sources within 10 years. Although he has launched the We Campaign which has pushed this goal, this article is a quick and easy read, and as such, I highly recommend you take a look.

There has been increasing news coverage of alternative energy, most notably due to the explosion in energy prices over the last couple years. I saw two interesting articles over the last day, one from the conservative editorial pages of The Wall Street Journal, and the other from The New York Times.

Please note – photo courtesy of The New York Times (photographer: Christinne Muschi).

The WSJ opinion piece points out that one of the key barriers to growth in alternative energy is infrastructure, most notably transmission lines connecting the sources of energy (wind and solar fields in rural and desert locations in the plains and Southwest) and the cities in which most people live. The WSJ, in it’s characteristic fashion, blames this challenge on liberals, who they claim support alternative energy but oppose the construction of transmission lines, as they often have to go through protected lands. Here’s a link to the piece.

The Times describes challenges and conflicts of interest that have arisen in upstate New York, where wind revenue has become critical for family farmers. The article highlights instances when local town boards have voted on wind leases for firms when several of the individual members already had contracts in place for their own farms. A key issue, the article goes on to discuss, is that there is no statewide (New York) law on wind power, so it is up to the individual towns to decide. Here’s a link to the article.

If alternative energy is to become more widespread (according to the WSJ, wind only provides two-thirds of 1% of electricity generated in the U.S., and solar one-tenth of 1%), there will have to be better statewide and national legislation that fast tracks the development of wind farms, solar fields, and other energy sources. At the same time, a balance has to be struck between speed and careful examination of the intricacies of development (impact on local environments, costs, etc).

Nevertheless, it is no longer debatable that these technologies are needed. In fact, weaning our country off of foreign oil and developing better domestic, renewable (and clean) energy resources are key elements and ingredients to the future success of our country. My sincere hope is that the right balance can happen in order to unlock this power and bring jobs to local markets with it.

I had the chance to read Tom Friedman’s most recent op-ed piece, “Texas To Tel Aviv” in the New York Times today, and felt compelled to share it with the folks who read Sustainable Ink.

The article focuses on two people: T. Boone Pickens and Shai Agassi. Pickens, who made his fortune in the oil business, is leading a charge to get the United States to devote a significant amount of resources to the development of wind energy. In fact, he has spent $2 billion of his own money buying land in the Texas Panhandle as well as 700 wind turbines from GE (their largest turbine order ever), in order to create the largest wind farm in the world. To read more about his efforts, please visit the Pickens Plan website.

Agassi, an Israeli technology guru, launched Project Better Place last year, with the goal of creating a nationwide grid of electric cars in Israel. The project has a very ambitious mission, but has been gaining traction with car makers and governments.

The reason I wanted to call your attention to the column, and more importantly to these two entrepreneurs with bold visions, is because electric cars and renewable energy are game-changing initiatives that have the potential to have a dramatic impact on the fight against global warming as well as our nation’s addiction to oil, most of which comes from foreign sources. Pickens and Agassi are showing that doing well while doing good are not mutually exclusive ideas.

Over the last 16 months, my firm has been at the forefront of bringing renewable energy to the marketing industry. We not only have powered our own plants with wind energy, but created a cooperative group that comprised a half-dozen other firms in our space to do the same. As a result, we have saved tens of thousands of gallons of oil as well as eliminated more than 1 million pounds of carbon emissions from the atmosphere. For these efforts, we have been recognized by the United States Environmental Protection Agency.

Pickens and Agassi are impressive because they are not waiting for the US Congress to act to make renewable energy initiatives easier. Neither should we. Each of us in our own way, either personally or organizationally, can do our share to reduce our dependence on oil by moving to renewable energy. My firm, Grossman Marketing Group, decided that the best way to do this is to use wind power to produce all of our marketing materials. Our efforts have been endorsed by some of our country’s most reputable environmental organizations, including the League of Conservation Voters and the National Park Foundation. In addition, many of the nearly 100 clients that have produced their materials with us bearing our proprietary wind power logo have received positive feedback in the marketplace for doing so.

It is incumbent upon us in the marketing industry to do our part to fight global warming and the country’s addiction to oil, and we believe wind power is the best way to make that a reality.

SWEETWATER, Tex. — The wind turbines that recently went up on Louis Brooks’s ranch are twice as high as the Statue of Liberty, with blades that span as wide as the wingspan of a jumbo jet. More important from his point of view, he is paid $500 a month apiece to permit 78 of them on his land, with 76 more on the way.

“That’s just money you’re hearing,” he said as they hummed in a brisk breeze recently.

Texas, once the oil capital of North America, is rapidly turning into the capital of wind power. After breakneck growth the last three years, Texas has reached the point that more than 3 percent of its electricity, enough to supply power to one million homes, comes from wind turbines.